Unmaking
by FaithDaria
Summary: "You have to stop it," Castiel said. And that's exactly what Dean did. Written for spn j2 bigbang.


Title: Unmaking

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Gen

Summary: "You have to stop it," Castiel said. So Dean did exactly that.

Spoilers/Warnings: Everything up to the end of season 5 is fair game, but there are specifics for "In the Beginning" and "Sympathy for the Devil."

Prologue

Libby was shrieking in the corner as the hunter lowered the gun barrel. Mary hurried over to comfort her, sparing a momentary glance at the still-twitching corpse of what had once been a doctor. She was still processing the flashes of lightning that had flickered from inside the ribcage and the obscene yellow glow had faded from the man's eyes, leaving blank, dead brown behind.

Her father cleared his throat and eyed the man called Dean with a mixture of suspicion and interest. "So I guess it is real. Can I see it?"

"No," he said curtly, tucking it away inside his battered leather jacket. "I should get it back. It needs to be there." It was as if all that tension and focus that she had witnessed earlier had drained away, leaving behind a weary but satisfied man. He looked over at Mary, catching her eye. "Good luck with that John kid," he said, raising an eyebrow and not-quite-smiling. Dean turned and headed toward the door.

"You're just leaving," Mary blurted out. "Just like that?" It wasn't that she wanted another hunter hanging around. This was it. She was done. Normal life married to John Winchester, here she comes. But something about Dean made her feel safe, the same way being around John did sometimes. It would have been nice to get to know him a little better.

"I did my job. I stopped it," he said. This time when the man spoke he full-out grinned. "See you around." He walked out the door, and Mary watched as he joined another man in a trench coat at the end of the walk. And then they were simply gone.

Her father grunted in surprise. "What the hell was that?"

Dean wasn't sure what to expect when Castiel whisked him away from Lawrence. He'd seen enough movies to know that changing the past altered his future. He had no idea what was going to happen, what he would remember of his life before, but he hadn't thought it would take this long. Or end up in the middle of an empty field. "So what now?"

"That depends on you."

"I did my job. I stopped it," Dean repeated.

"Yes, you did." Castiel started walking and Dean followed, pissed off and looking for some answers from the angel. He was tired of this enigmatic bullshit. "And now you have a decision to make."

"What?"

"What you have done changed things. And it changed you, the version of you who will be born six years from now. Dean Winchester, son of Mary and John Winchester, will be born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, along with his siblings. He will never hunt anything more dangerous than a rabbit. But you still remember it differently. You remember what really happened."

"What does that mean?"

"You are a man outside of time. You do not belong here, but neither do you belong in your own time anymore. You could simply be absorbed into the Dean Winchester that will now exist. That should be my next task, actually."

"And why haven't you done that already?"

"Because then you, the Dean that was raised as a hunter, who saved lives and went to hell for his brother, will cease to exist." The angel shrugged, an odd gesture from him. "As I was the one who raised you from perdition, I find myself reluctant to remove you so readily. You are a warrior, Dean. Choose."

"And what exactly are my choices here?" Dean turned to face Castiel. "I don't wanna die, Cas. And the idea of being erased like Marty McFly doesn't really appeal to me either." The euphoria of the hunt was starting to wear off, leaving him exhausted and aching. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep since he'd gotten back from hell, and he'd just gone straight for the past two days rather than even try. "What can I do?"

Castiel studied him for a moment, the bright blue eyes of his vessel narrowed. "Rest," he said finally, reaching out with two fingers and pressing against Dean's forehead. And then there was finally peace.

He woke up in a bed. A very comfortable bed, to be precise, in a room that was vaguely familiar to him, and this prompted him to fling himself out of the bed, directly into Castiel. The angel steadied him and kept him from further flight.

"I have had it with these mind games," Dean spat out, furious to find himself back in this house all over again.

"This is not a game," Castiel said gravely. "You needed a safe place to rest and recover. I created this one from your memories."

The hunter looked around him, taking in the toys piled haphazardly in the corner and the cowboy-themed decorations. "This hasn't been a safe place in a long time."

"Some part of you still equates your parents' home with safety, Dean, or else I wouldn't have been able to recreate it so completely. Have you decided what you will do?"

Dean had managed to forget about this while he slept, but now the events of the past few days came rushing back in awful clarity. "What are my choices, Cas?"

"You could merge with the Dean Winchester from this time stream. That would be the simplest course of action."

"Door number two, please." He tried to keep his exasperation to himself; it was only wasted on the angel.

"You could remain in this time. Live out your life here."

"But you won't take me back to my time."

"You don't belong there anymore. No one knows you. No one there misses you." Castiel's words hit like bullets in his most vulnerable spots, and the angel continued to look at him with that inscrutable gaze. "If you want to remain separate, you will have to stay in this time."

"And do what?"

"What you do best, Dean. Hunt." Castiel's lips quirked up in what could almost be called a half-smile. "You are a warrior and a righteous man, Dean Winchester. You are needed. We have work for you."

Chapter One

The decision was not a hard one to make. Dean would always choose the fight over oblivion. The only truly difficult thing about it was choosing exactly which steps he wanted to take, and when he wanted to take them. People might think of him as the reckless Winchester, the one who never plans, but he could strategize with the best of them when he so chose. John Winchester didn't raise any idiots, despite what some of his teachers had thought. He just had to think about this rationally, evaluate what he had, obtain what he needed, and decide what he was going to do next.

His only physical asset, the only one he could really keep, was his father's journal. The Colt was still technically in his possession, but he had promised to return it. The car he had stolen earlier was a lost cause by now, especially since the angel had left him a state or so away from Lawrence, Kansas before taking off with a flutter of invisible wings. He had no weapons of his own, his contacts were more than thirty years out of date, and he didn't have enough cash to last more than a week. Dean thought of the loss of the Impala with a pang of regret. He didn't dare think about Sam at all.

Dean Winchester was entirely alone.

Not for the first time in his life, the only things he could depend on were what he carried inside of his own head.

The first deficit was the easiest one to fix: he needed cash. This was accomplished with a few nights spent in a series of seedy bars, one of the few things that hadn't changed in the thirty-five years he'd lost. He hadn't had to hustle by himself for a year or two, but you didn't forget a life skill like that.

He couldn't stand walking around naked like this, especially without backup, so weapons beat out a car in a narrow margin, although he picked up a piece of heavy, solid American-made machinery in short order. It wasn't the Impala, but he had a feeling he could keep the engine running indefinitely, so long as everyone managed to avoid nuclear disaster this time around. It didn't take long to get his hands on a couple of handguns and a shotgun, and he'd replaced the knife he kept under his pillow and the one he usually had tucked into his boot before he'd had breakfast the first day here in 1973.

With those basic necessities taken care of, Dean turned his attention to the next item of business: get unbelievably drunk.

He figured he was long overdue for it, all things considered, between Hell and this latest fiasco. It wasn't truly safe to really drink in public, especially by himself, so he holed up in a motel room with a couple of bottles of Jack and proceeded to get completely smashed. And if he used that as a chance to mourn his old life and the brother he would never have again, no one was around to think less of him for it.

After three days he left the dingy motel and dusty Nebraska town a little hung over but ready to move on. He had work to do.

Dean cursed under his breath as the shovel squelched into the soggy earth. He hadn't had to do a salt-n-burn by himself in a long time, and his memory had apparently blurred over what a pain it was to not be able to switch off while digging. It wasn't raining any more, at least, and he'd been able to put down a decent salt line in a nice, wide circle around the grave of Elizabeth Joseph, just in case the old girl got sick of haunting her former homestead and came out for a visit.

It was his first case as a newly revamped solo act, and so far it had gone completely to plan. He took care of the last few shovelfuls of dirt and cracked open the rotting coffin lid before climbing out and performing the familiar ritual of salt, accelerant, matches that lead to a successfully finished hunt.

Castiel appeared just as Dean finished setting in the sod he had cut away at the beginning. The key to getting away with what the law called "grave desecration" was to make sure it went unnoticed. "You couldn't have showed up an hour ago?" Dean asked as he picked up the shovel, salt container and empty lighter fluid bottle. "I just freaking killed my back digging this grave by myself."

The angel tilted his head and looked at him. "You should go to your friend Bobby," he said, ignoring Dean's earlier statement.

Shit. Bobby. Bobby, who had recurring nightmares about stabbing his possessed wife. Hunters didn't ask for specifics about each other's introduction to the supernatural, and Bobby had never felt like explaining what little Dean had seen in their shared dream. "Did it happen already?"

"Did what happen?"

Dean rolled his eyes as he tossed the shovel into the trunk. "Did his wife die yet?"

"Karen Singer has gone to my Father, yes," Castiel said. "Almost a year ago. Bobby has begun searching for the demon responsible."

"Bobby? Man, Bobby has the junkyard."

"When you knew him. But once he was on the road, looking for answers." The 'Just like John Winchester' went unspoken, but Dean heard it nonetheless. "He could use an ally."

Dean looked away. He missed Bobby, though he'd rather gouge out his own eyes than admit it. As much as he played it up, Dean hated being alone on the hunt and out on the road. "Yeah, okay. Where is he?" The hunter turned back, unsurprised but a little disappointed to find the angel gone. He cursed and got into the car.

Finding someone (or something) in this time was far more difficult without GPS cell phones and the Internet. He'd had to revive some rusty skills and create a few new ones to effectively hunt again and it was going to be a pain in the ass to turn those toward finding another hunter, especially since he hadn't had time to rebuild his contact list yet. This was going to take I_days_./I

It ended up taking a week, and in the end it was more Dean's experience with grieving hunters than any specific skill that found Robert Stephen Singer. Bobby's anniversary was coming. His wife had died almost exactly one year ago. The man would either be out trying to get himself killed in the most foolhardy way possible, or he'd be in a bar working on the problem of getting himself as drunk as possible. So Dean combined the two and looked for the bar closest to the most dangerous hunt he could find. He hit pay-dirt with an aswang in a tiny town on the Texas/Louisiana border.

It was a good thing he'd had time and practice when it came to repressing and compartmentalizing, Dean reflected as he sat down next to the younger man who he'd once seen as a second father. Bobby was putting away whiskey like it was Coca-Cola and spoiling for a fight, and this had to be handled just right if he wanted to keep any kind of contact with the man. This was definitely not the time to be airing his personal issues.

"Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum," Dean said quietly once he'd gotten hold of his own beer. When in doubt, lead with Latin.

Bobby gave him a bleary glare that Dean recognized even without the wrinkles and under a head of shaggy dark hair. "Who the hell are you?"

Dean shrugged. "Someone who's in town for the same reason you are."

"I doubt that," the man spat out with the kind of disdain most people only managed with copious amounts of either alcohol or money.

"Rash of miscarriages and child deaths and at least one reported theft of a cadaver."

Bobby looked askance at him and set his shot glass down. "Who. Are. You."

"I'm a Hunter. Guessing you are too. And an aswang is a two-man job." Dean took a long drink of his beer, carefully casual. "Dean Colt."

The other man grunted. "Bob Singer. I prefer to work alone."

"Good way to end up dead," said Dean.

"What does it matter to you?" The look on his face was a little more focused and a lot angrier than his earlier gaze.

"There aren't enough Hunters out there as it is. It would be a shame to lose one."

Bobby watched the other man in the mirror above the bar. He'd only met a handful of other hunters, every one of them middle-aged, bitter men who kept to themselves and were possessive of their hunts. This one was only a year or two older than he was, and way too cheerful for the new life that Bobby was carving out. Why had this guy approached him at all?

"Christo," he muttered, and Dean laughed.

"Nope. Not a demon. Just a guy." He tapped the ring on his right hand against the glass bottle, the motion idle. "I know what happened to your wife."

"Let me guess, it gets easier? Time heals all wounds?" Bobby dropped his gaze from his unwelcome companion and tossed back another shot. "Any other pearls of wisdom you need to share?"

Dean winced. "It never gets easier. It never goes away. Some wounds don't ever really heal. But you learn to bury it deep, use it to fuel the fight."

"What would you know about it?" growled Bobby. "It took her. It changed her. It made her . . . made me . . ." He trailed off, frustrated by trying to express something that no words could explain.

The other hunter was quiet for a moment or two, giving Bobby time to pull himself together. "Everyone got into hunting somehow." There was another period of silence before he flashed a quicksilver grin. "You know what helps? Killing every evil son of a bitch you can find."

"And how do we kill this one?" Bobby had a pretty good idea, but he'd learned early on in this new career that the best way to take someone's measure was to ask a question you already had an answer to.

"Silver," the other man answered. "I prefer shooting, then decapitation, then salt and burn just to make sure. You do not want these things getting back up."

"Ever gone up against one before?"

"Yeah, 'bout ten years back. Mean-tempered son of a bitch, smelled like rotten meat." He made a disgusted face. "They're shapeshifters, too. One I killed looked like a damned grandma until the salt hit her."

"Read somewhere that they don't like semen."

Dean gave a short burst of laughter. "That one's a myth. Aswang have absolutely no problems with dick, trust me. The damned thing had half of the old neighborhood bachelors panting after it."

"Huh."

"That's usually the way things go," Dean said, pausing to take a long swallow from his bottle. "You have to do trial and error to find out how much of the lore is crap and how much is true."

"Patronizing son of a bitch," Bobby complained. "You can't have been doing this much longer than me."

Dean smiled bitterly. "Been doing it my whole life. Family business."

"So why ain't you with your family, then, 'stead of bothering me?"

"They're all gone," the older man said. "Something to think about if you plan on doing this long-term." The joviality from earlier had ebbed away. "Any suspects on the aswang?"

They quietly talked shop for the next hour, the two of them heading back to a table. Bobby regretfully left the whiskey behind as well. He didn't know this guy from Adam and it would be stupid to compromise himself any more than he already had.

Dead burning aswang smelled about as appealing as rotten bananas and dog shit, something Bobby was planning on noting for future reference. Dean had dug a shallow pit and dumped the body inside before lighting it up, and now they took turns tending the macabre bonfire. The other man had produced a fifth of Jack from somewhere and they passed it back and forth as the bones slowly turned to ash.

Once the fire had done its job, they both picked up shovels and began to fill in the makeshift grave. Dean was focused on his task, almost contemplative as he tossed dirt down into the hole, and Bobby was only receiving grunts and one-word replies to his questions. As much as he hated letting the other man know it, the knowledge rattling around in Dean's head was priceless and he didn't know how long he would have to pick his brain.

When the grave was closed up, Bobby grabbed the shovels while Dean double-checked that everything was cleared away and that he had all the weapons and the empty salt canisters tucked away into the duffle. Then they started the long walk back toward the car.

Bobby had given up on his inquiries while they were still within sight of their recent hunt. There came a point when persistence turned into stupidity, and he didn't want to drift over into that lane. Dean obviously didn't want to talk right now, so Bobby would give him silence.

Which was why he was startled when Dean cleared his throat and said, "Hunting works better when there's two people. Wanna join up?"

Bobby choked back a laugh. "Jesus. You're not exactly subtle, are you?"

There was a grin, sharp and bright in the moonlight. "Good looks run in the family, not tact. Subtlety is a waste of time and energy most of the time. So what do you say?"

"Give me a minute." The man mulled over the possibilities as they walked. If Dean Colt was telling the truth, he'd be an invaluable tool in parsing the truth out of the lore. Bobby had spent the last several months receiving a haphazard training in hunting demons and monsters, but he had a feeling that this guy could be the best source for hunting that he was going to meet. "We could give it a try, see how it works out."

Dean nodded, as if that settled it. "Harder question, then: your car or mine?"

They ended up taking Dean's heavy, solid Chevy, mostly because the trunk space meant that they could store almost any weapon they might need, or possibly a body. Bobby sold his own car with a slight pang of regret; it had belonged to Maggie before he took it out on the road to avenge her death. Sentimental value didn't keep it from being a crap car, though, and he pocketed the five hundred dollars and left the thing behind.

Dean, as it turned out, was better at this than Bobby expected. Along with a pretty extensive knowledge of the unnatural, the man was a gifted con artist who could get nearly any piece of information from people that he wanted, as long as the person wasn't whatever they're hunting. It's actually a pretty accurate litmus test about something being other than human: if Dean couldn't charm a person, especially a woman, even the slightest bit, there's a good chance that chick was involved.

And Lord, the man could fight.

All told, working with Dean Colt was probably one of the best decisions he'd made since he'd started hunting for the Demon responsible for his wife's death, even if his scanty contacts knew nothing about him. Nobody, in fact, knew anything about him that hadn't come from the man himself, but Bobby had run every check he could think of, for every creature he could think of, and Dean came out as completely, entirely human. One who apparently hadn't existed until this year, for all that Bobby could tell, but a human being nonetheless.

Dean would tell tales about his life on the road, talk about the various hunts he'd done, even discuss movies or books, but in four months he hadn't divulged more than a handful of things about himself. Bobby could give you details on all of Dean's preferences, more than he really wanted to know, actually, and Dean could probably do the same for them. But he didn't know much more than the basic outline of how the man became a hunter in the first place, and Bobby could tell that most of his stories were carefully edited in some way or another.

He was the most open mysterious individual that Bobby had ever met, and Bobby suspected that Dean liked it that way.

This younger version of Bobby handled himself pretty well in the woods, better than Dean would have expected. He gave his friend bonus points for the difficulty of this particular terrain; it hadn't been particularly easy in 2005 with GPS, fancy tents and satellite phones, and it was less-traveled than it had been the last time he'd hiked back into this part of Colorado.

This was another one of the hunts from his personal file, something he needed to take care of before it became a problem in the future. He'd been working on writing down the details of every hunt that he remembered that wasn't in his dad's journal, which is to say most of them. John Winchester was one of the best hunters Dean had ever met, but he wrote case notes in a way that only he could really follow. The trick, now that Bobby was traveling along with him, was getting the other man to accept that there was a hunt in the first place. He ended up doing background research that he really didn't need so that he could justify the hunt without having to fall back on some kind of psychic claim.

As far as his memory served him, the wendigo wasn't due to surface for a feeding until 1982, so they should be able to catch the thing in hibernation and light it up without any problems, especially since he knew where the thing's lair was.

If, you know, he could ever actually find it.

He knew the general location, though it would have been a lot easier to find with an actual GPS device, and he remembered that it was a mine shaft not too far from that specific latitude and longitude. Consequently, the two of them had spent the better part of yesterday tramping out to the middle of nowhere in some not-entirely-pleasant backcountry, camped out surrounded by Anasazi symbols for a somewhat uncomfortable night, and were now beating the bushes in widening circles looking for the damn thing. Dean could tell that Bobby was getting frustrated; he hadn't believed in this hunt in the first place and it had taken some pretty serious convincing before he agreed to come along. Hibernation or not, a wendigo wasn't something you hunted alone.

"Any sign?"

"No." The tone was far more eloquent than the single word conveyed, and Dean could hear the implied, 'you idjit' behind it. "You're sure about this?"

"Yes, Bobby, I am sure," Dean said through gritted teeth. "It went after hikers in 1959 and 1936, and I'm willing to bet people went missing in 1913 too. If we can take it out before it wakes up in 1982, we can save some lives."

"All right. Guess we'll keep looking."

It took another two hours before Dean stumbled over the closed-off mine shaft, during which time Bobby got in several digs about senility and forgetting where he left his car keys. Dean ignored him for the most part, intent on not spilling that he should know where it was, since he'd been inside three years ago and thirty-two years in the future.

As advertised, once they got inside and actually found the wendigo it was still in hibernation, sleeping amongst the bones of its victims. It didn't even stir when Dean and Bobby hit it with two flares and only flailed momentarily before it fell into ashes.

"That was sadly anticlimactic," Bobby muttered, and Dean had to agree. There were definite benefits to anticlimactic, though, and he wasted no time in pointing them out.

"I like any hunt where I don't get eaten, concussed, or impaled."

"Or set on fire, like that time in Montana," Bobby said, grinning. "Think we should salt and burn the bones of its victims, while we're at it?"

"Couldn't hurt. I'd come back as a pissed-off spirit if I'd been eaten alive."

They spent the rest of the daylight collecting the remains and building a firepit before retreating back behind the Anasazi symbols for another night of sleeping on roots and the occasional stone. The bones went up the next morning, fairly quickly since they were dry and free of flesh, and they covered up the embers with dirt and hiked back out.

No bleeding, no broken bones, and no mental scars. Dean would take it.

Chapter 2

"I need to head out to Kansas for a day or two," Dean said as they walked back to the car. He'd been quieter, lately, less apt to flirt with waitresses or strike up an aimless conversation about anything other than hunting as Halloween approached. Not even this particular werewolf hunt could do much to raise the man's spirits. "No hunt or anything, just something I need to do. You in?"

Bobby knew better than to ask. Dean had spilled the bare bones of his story a few weeks after they'd started traveling together, while under the influence of tequila and blood loss, but there was no chance he'd share something personal when sober. And this? Most definitely personal. "Where in Kansas? Do they even have a library, or am I supposed to just sit around like a jilted girlfriend while you run around?"

Dean smiled, a little subdued but there. "Better. Lawrence, Kansas, home to the Stull Cemetery, thought to be a gateway to Hell. Thought you might be interested."

The thought gave the young hunter pause. He'd heard rumors about gateways, but he'd never been this close to one, and Bobby was suddenly itching to dive into the lore surrounding the place. "Kansas sounds good. Can't believe you knew where the door to hell was and didn't tell me."

"A rumored door," Dean corrected. "I'm saving the next one for your birthday."

Bobby had a feeling he wasn't joking.

Lawrence hadn't changed much in the past six months, which didn't really surprise Dean: same skeevy motel with the drug-dealing manager, same two-lane Main Street, and the same sleepy residential streets, which was oddly comforting to him. He dropped Bobby off at the motel and headed past the Campbell house. He didn't go in, though part of him wanted to, and instead drove to the house where he spent the first four years of his life, starting a little more than five years from now.

The Winchester name was on the mailbox, which was a good start. The lawn was freshly mown, downstairs lights on. He sat in his car about fifty yards from the house, watching as John swung the Impala into a place in front of a white picket fence and headed in. The lights on the first floor went off around ten; the bedroom light upstairs extinguished by midnight, and Dean still waited, keeping guard over the clapboard house and its occupants as November 1, 1973 ticked over into November 2.

He was still there when dawn turned the sky pink, a little surprised that no one had called the police about the man lurking in the shadows. Mary and John left for work together, and Dean spent several agonizing moments before he swung back around to tail his mother. He knew where he could find John, but he had no memories of Mary working outside the home.

Oddly enough, she walked the two blocks down from the garage and led him to the diner where he had run into John six months ago, tying back her hair and donning an apron before hitting the floor as the second shift waitress.

Dean followed her inside after a few minutes, sat down at the counter and waited. It didn't take long.

"You can't be here," Mary hissed, under the guise of taking his order. "I told you I was done with hunting."

"I'm not hunting anything but a good cup of coffee right now," he said, keeping his voice quiet and pleasant. "A cup of coffee and the special, if you don't mind."

"Promise?" She poured his coffee, still studying him.

"Promise. Got a friend who wanted to investigate the Stull Cemetery, figured I could use the time to do some research of my own." This part wasn't entirely untrue; he could use some time away from Bobby to work on his future hunt journal. It would be nice if he could do more hunts like the wendigo and prevent the deaths that had originally attracted him, but he had no idea how to explain that to Bobby. The man already looked at him strangely when he pulled out one of those hunts.

Dean wondered what the other man would think if he ever saw the back pages of the journal, where he'd jotted down a few other things he'd thought would be useful, like investing in Microsoft and preventing certain manmade disasters. His father had always taught him to be prepared for anything, and he aimed to take that to heart.

"All right." Mary smiled a bright sunshine smile, the relief obvious on her face and in her voice. "You should drop by and visit my parents. My dad had some things he wanted to ask you."

Dean shrugged. "We'll see." He wasn't planning on visiting the grandparents who didn't know they were grandparents. Too many of the wrong questions, for one, and the entire situation was just a little too strange for even him. As much as he wanted to get to know Samuel and Deanna Campbell, the idea of being shot, salted and burned if he let something slip was a fairly powerful deterrent.

Mary headed back into the kitchen with his order, and Dean settled down with his coffee and journal. The cases his father worked were infuriatingly vague in his memories, and the same went for most of the hunts until he was in his 20's. He just hadn't been involved enough for the details to stick.

He ate his breakfast when Mary brought it, then dove back into the project, hardly noticing as she kept refilling his coffee. She didn't try to start any new conversations, and if the young woman noticed that he would look up and search the room for her with regularity she didn't comment on it.

When the lunch crowd started to roll in, Dean packed it up and headed back toward the garage to check in on John. He knew, academically, that nothing would be coming after them now. He'd taken out the yellow-eyed demon before it could make any more deals and as far as he could tell no one had stepped up to take Azazel's place. To the world they were just another set of newlyweds, and Dean aimed to make sure it stayed that way. Mary was perfectly capable of handling anything that the supernatural threw her way, and she could always call her parents for backup.

But still he stayed and watched over them. November 2nd had always been a private day for his family, made almost holy by his father's devotion, and it was hard to break a lifetime habit of keeping a close key on the man when the date rolled around.

Dean had made himself comfortable on a bench across from John's garage, journal tucked away in his car, when a young black woman with a serious Afro sat down next to him. She was cute and curvy and when she smiled he could tell that she was probably a little fiery, which made her precisely his type.

"My name's Missouri," she said.

His thoughts changed direction so fast he was surprised that he hadn't left tire tracks. Dean forced himself into some semblance of order and said, "Any particular reason you're talking to me?"

"Any particular reason a hunter is hanging around my town at two in the afternoon?"

"It's personal," he said, and deliberately didn't think about anything other than the sight of the Impala, gleaming in its parking space behind the garage.

Missouri hmmphed and made herself comfortable next to him. "There's something different about you," she said. "Like you're much older than you look, but whenever I try to get a little more all I see is this bright light."

"You might want to be careful," he cautioned. "Last psychic that tried too hard got her eyes burned out by that."

"Why would you do such a thing?" she said, indignant.

"I wasn't the one that did it, and trust me when I say that I was pissed off when it happened. But it's something that can't be controlled and that no human eyes should see." Her presence unsettled him, and he decided to drive her off with what Sam used to call the anti-charm. "Hate for a hot piece of ass like you to have her eyeballs melted out of the sockets."

"There's no need for that," Missouri said, her calm mostly restored. He must have let something slip. "I was getting ready to leave. I was just curious, is all. Never seen an aura like yours before."

"I'm pretty unique, sweetheart." He turned away from he and back to the garage. The young woman eventually stood up and walked away, leaving Dean to his vigil.

He didn't have very much time to enjoy his solitude. No sooner had Missouri disappeared around a corner than Castiel was suddenly sitting in her place. The angel was silent for a long time while the hunter watched his father change oil and tires and dig into an engine block, and it wasn't until Dean turned to look at him that he spoke.

"Your parents are protected now. You don't have to watch over them."

"I need to do it, Cas. I need to make November 2nd good again, and this is the only way I can think of to do it." He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. "Don't worry, I'll get back to hunting tomorrow. You guys have the management skills of a plantation overseer."

"That's not what concerns me, Dean. This place causes you distress, even though you managed to stop the deal that would cause your mother's death. Why come to Lawrence if it causes you pain?"

"Call it a pilgrimage," Dean finally said, avoiding the topic of a deal. That was something for another day. "My mother died in that house. The man who my father used to be pretty much died too, even if no one remembers it. This is my version of Graceland."

"What's Graceland?"

Dean shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Point is, this is the town where my life as a hunter began. I need to come back and remember sometimes, and watching over John and Mary Winchester gives me something to focus on."

Castiel tilted his head slightly in a gesture that Dean interpreted as a nod. Really, angels should understand the concept of a pilgrimage. "And the rest of the time you will continue to hunt with your friend Robert Singer?"

"Yeah. Like you said, all those people that we saved before are back where they were, and someone has to take care of it." Dean watched as John clocked out and climbed into the Impala. The angel was gone when he glanced over to his side again, and Dean shook his head and got into his own car.

The Winchesters headed straight for home after leaving work, making them one of the more boring newlywed couples in existence. Not that he particularly wanted to see his parents as swingers or party animals, but this was all just so very normal that he couldn't quite comprehend it.

Dean sat in his parked car just the way he had the night before, watching as the lights inside the Winchester home were extinguished and the clock ticked over into November 3rd. Then he started the engine and headed back to the motel for some much-needed sleep.

Dean looked down at the spikes that had become embedded in his leg. "Fuck," he said, spitting out the curse word and scrambling for his duffle.

Bobby looked over from where he was studying the corpse of the creature, recognizing that particular tone of voice from his time in Vietnam. They only had a faint idea what it was they'd just killed, which was usually a recipe for disaster, but they'd packed consecrated iron and silver and salt and gotten lucky. "What's wrong?"

"Recognize it now." Dean was rifling through his possessions with desperation.

"Let me guess, this wasn't enough to kill it."

"Oh, it works fine for killing it. But these things are poisonous." He gestured down to his bloodstained jeans as he pulled out what he was looking for. "The poison won't kill me, but I'm going to start hallucinating pretty soon and trust me when I say you're gonna want me tied up for that."

"You gotta be kidding me," Bobby groaned. "We're out in the damned middle of nowhere."

"Better out here than someplace where the locals can hear and get the wrong impression," Dean said, shrugging out of his leather jacket and tossing it on top of the bag. He walked over to a sturdy-looking tree and handed over a set of handcuffs to the friend trailing behind him. Bobby accepted them, though he wasn't sure exactly how his friend was planning on using the things. "No matter what happens, don't come within kicking distance until you're sure it's over. Should take me a few hours to ride out the worst of it." He sat down, his back settling against the trunk of the tree, and stretched his arms backwards.

Bobby caught on fairly quickly and slipped behind the tree, fastening the cuffs around the other man's wrists and making sure they were tight. One of the first things Dean had taught him when they started traveling together was how to get out of handcuffs, either by picking the lock or, in cases of desperation, by dislocating or breaking the bones of the hand. He really didn't want to see an example of that last one, and the best way to avoid that was to make the cuffs so tight that even that bit of lunacy wouldn't set him free.

He stepped away and was getting ready to ask if his friend needed anything when he caught the expression on Dean's face. Bobby could only identify the emotion because of recent experiences hunting; it was absolutely foreign to see terror on Dean Colt's face. The poison started working damned fast.

The corpse burned easily enough, although Bobby found himself muttering imprecations on his friend for missing out on the least-enjoyable aspect of the hunt. When the fire burned down to embers, he stomped them out and then settled down across from his friend.

There wasn't a lot he really knew about Dean. He liked women, all kinds, and not always just for sex. There was a great fondness for pie and solid American-made cars, along with loud music. He got friggin' morose in early May, watchful in early November, and fidgety in September. Good with guns, better with his fists, and one of the best he'd ever seen around an engine. But it wasn't like they sat around in a motel room at night, braiding each other's hair and sharing their greatest hopes and fears. Bobby had no idea what to expect.

Dean was already beginning to struggle against his bonds when Bobby hunkered down, using the tree behind him to push up until he was standing. He was talking to whoever or whatever he was seeing, his voice a growl as he threatened the hallucination. Bobby only recognized one name out of every three that his friend uttered, but those few names made the hair stand on the back of his neck. Everyone with a teaspoonful of demon knowledge had heard some permutation of the Lilith legend, but Dean spoke of her like she was his personal nemesis.

When Dean lurched forward and down, Bobby couldn't help but jump back. He watched in sick horror as his friend hung suspended from his now-dislocated shoulder, Dean's scream of rage and pain making him glad they'd stayed out in the middle of nowhere. "You let me go, you sick bastards. You leave my brother alone! Sam!"

Bobby took another step back and bumped into something solid and unmoveable. He thought he'd run into a tree until two hands grasped his arms, Ipicked him up/I and moved him out of the way. He barely had enough time to aim his shotgun at the trenchcoat-clad figure before it reached Dean.

The shotgun blast had absolutely no effect, even though he was positive he'd hit the thing. The creature stepped up to his friend with absolute disregard for Dean's thrashing and rested two human-seeming fingers on the man's forehead. "Rest," said a gravelly, not-entirely-human voice, and Dean sagged down bonelessly. He was caught and gently lowered to the ground before the being turned around, revealing a human face. "I am not a threat to him, Robert Singer. Nor to you."

The shotgun didn't waver or lower. "I'd be more inclined to believe you if I knew who and what the hell you are."

There was a curious tilt of the thing's head, oddly reminiscent of a bird. "My name is Castiel. I'm an angel of the Lord."

"Ain't no such thing," Bobby spat.

There was a soft exhalation, which Bobby would discover later was the equivalent of a drawn-out sigh combined with eye-rolling, and then lightning flashed and he saw the shadow of enormous wings spread wide against the backdrop of trees. "He did not believe either, at first," the angel said, his voice oddly curious. "Humans have become very skeptical in the last two thousand years."

"Why are you here?" Bobby had dropped the weapon down to his side, but he reserved the right to keep it at hand while he talked to this 'Castiel' guy.

"I am here because I felt his pain." Castiel did not elaborate on this topic, nor did he begin a new one. Instead, the angel dropped down to the ground by Dean, watching his sleeping form with an odd lack of expression.

"He's been slashed open twice and dislocated that shoulder at least once since I've known him. That wasn't enough pain for you?"

"That was physical. Dean knows how to handle physical pain. It was the emotional pain that brought me here." He reached around the tree and produced the now-open handcuffs, setting them aside before passing a hand over the quills still embedded in Dean's leg. When Bobby got another look the quills were gone and the leg was whole again. "The Hystrix carries a poison that makes a person see his worst fears and memories, and Dean has a lot of those to choose from."

Bobby was suddenly presented with a dilemma. It was a pretty sure bet that the angel knew the answers to every question he'd ever had about Dean, questions he'd never dared to ask his friend. It seemed unwilling to lie, possibly even unable to do so. The problems with this were two-fold: only a sneaky bitch would go behind a friend's back like that, for one, and how do you interrogate an angel, anyway?

"Why him," he finally asked, deciding that was a fairly non-invasive question that probably wouldn't get him struck by lightning or shot by Dean.

"Because we have work for him," Castiel said. "He is a righteous man."

Bobby snorted. "In case you haven't noticed, the man's not exactly a saint. Guy gets more tail than the backseat of a cab." He realized that he'd said this to an angel a moment after the words had left his mouth, and felt himself redden. "What I mean is, Dean's a great guy, but not exactly who I'd think of as holy."

"Righteousness is defined as purity of heart," Castiel said, and Bobby didn't think the stiffness in his tone had been there quite so much earlier. "Doing the right thing for the right reason. We had priests. We needed a warrior."

"All right," said Bobby, hoping he wasn't about to earn himself a righteous smiting. "Why you?"

"Because I was the one who gripped his soul and raised it from perdition." The angel settled his hand on Dean's dislocated left shoulder, fitting slender fingers over the burn scar Dean made an effort to keep concealed. "His pain is my pain, until the end. That was the price for the privilege of raising him." The shoulder slipped back into place with no fanfare.

"That's enough, Cas," came a rough, weary voice. "Gotta leave me some mystery."

The angel frowned. "You should not be awake yet."

"Eh, you know how it goes. Places to go, things to kill." Dean sat up with a groan. "Thanks for showing up. I wasn't looking forward to spending the next ten or so hours reliving any of that crap."

"Please be more careful," Castiel said, his expression stern. "I must return to my duties." Then he was gone between one blink and the next.

Bobby looked at Dean as the other man climbed to his feet. "That's it. You're telling me everything."

No matter what Bobby said, Dean had no intention of telling him everything. Especially not the time travel. Highlights of the last few years maybe, (my brother died, I sold my soul to bring him back, went to hell, had an angel yank me out by the arm) but he'd come to like this younger version of Bobby for his own merits and was definitely not planning on tell him that a lifetime ago, Dean had thought of him as a second father. He had to leave out most of the details to keep all that a secret, but just the overview was enough to send a sane man screaming and he had a feeling that Bobby wasn't anxious for details.

"So that 'His pain is my pain' thing?"

"A new one to me," Dean admitted. "Castiel's pretty close-mouthed about that angel crap." He finished tucking away the weapons in the false bottom of the trunk before closing both the inside and outside lids and hurrying into the car and out of the cold, unfortunately into the passenger seat. Bobby had insisted, even though his injuries were gone, and Dean couldn't really argue.

Bobby nodded, absorbing the information as he followed Dean into the car. "And Hell?"

"Don't remember, not really." This was the first outright lie Dean had told to his friend in the whole tale, but that particular piece of information was no one's business but his. Forty years of memories that revolved around torture didn't belong in any conversation that he felt like having.

His friend looked contemplative as he started the engine and started driving down the rutted dirt road, which worried Dean a little. Nothing good ever came from such a look on the face of Bobby Singer. "So, angels are real."

"Both real and really annoying, most of the time," Dean confirmed.

"And that means that God is real." It was less a question and more a statement.

"They seem to think so," Dean said, shrugging. "Never met the guy myself."

Bobby would probably have been surprised at Dean's casual disregard of the matter if it hadn't fit right in with everything else he knew about the man. "And what does Castiel think about that?"

"Never asked him." Dean dug out a battered canteen from beneath the seat and took a drink. "Surest way to end a working relationship is to talk politics or religion." He drank again, deeply, before passing it over to Bobby. "Mostly he shows up to tell me to do something or to see if I'll explain some weird aspect of human behavior. It's not like we're hanging out at the Central Perk with Ross and Rachel."

"Who?"

"Don't worry about it. Point is, we don't spend much time together. He keeps pretty busy doing . . .whatever it is that angels do." Dean couldn't quite manage to keep out the bitterness as he indirectly quoted what Castiel had told him the second time they met. "You think the armies of heaven should just follow me around?"

There were a few seconds of silence, long enough to become awkward, before Bobby said gruffly, "I don't think even that could keep us out of trouble."

Dean laughed and the discussion moved on. "Let's head a few towns over, see if we can't find another case."

"You mean your angel buddy didn't give you one before he left?" Bobby chuckled at the idea before frowning. "Wait, is that where those weird cases come from?"

"What weird cases?" Dean tried his best to look both bored and innocent, but he was pretty sure he hadn't managed it.

"The one's like the Wendigo out in Colorado," Bobby said, a little impatiently. "Where you know more than you should about what's responsible and where to find it."

Huh. Dean hadn't even thought of that, but it was pretty much the perfect solution to the problem of hunts that came from his memories of the future. "Yeah. Sometimes Cas passes along stuff like that."

"Well, you could have just told me, 'stead of mucking around digging up research you didn't need."

Dean snorted. "This coming from the guy who probably didn't believe in angels six hours ago."

"Yeah, well, seeing is believing."

"That it is." Dean forced himself to settle back against his seat. He'd never made a good passenger. "No angel-approved hunt. We'll find our own."

Chapter 3

Dean settled into his new life (much like the old one, without the Internet or cell phones. Or Sammy, but he wasn't going to think about that) with no real difficulty. He had Bobby and the road and a steady supply of hunts, and the occasional drop-in from Cas, and life was actually better than it had been in years. His family was safe and protected, there was nothing looming on the horizon that couldn't be handled with research and rock salt, and he had more than one goal to take care of. For the first time in a long time, he was free.

A year passed this way, then two, marked only by his visit to Lawrence on November 2nd. On the third annual trip to Kansas, Bobby finally got up the nerve to ask about it, and Dean told him some of it: that he'd killed the demon responsible for his mother's death here and he came back to remember why he went into hunting in the first place. Bobby had nodded, his mouth tight, and Dean made sure they got back into the search for the demon responsible for his wife's death on November 3.

They were edging towards Dean's three-year anniversary, looking into a potential nest of changelings, when Castiel appeared in their motel room, his usually impeccable suit and trench coat splattered with blood and smudged with soot. "It's not safe here," he said, grabbing both of them and transporting them to a dusty, familiar living room. The two men had just enough time to process the change in surroundings before the angel disappeared again.

Bobby sank down onto the couch, ignoring the slight eruption of dust motes that followed the action. "Why did he bring me here?"

"He probably brought us here because it's a safe place," Dean answered, looking around. He'd seen a dream version of this house once, back when it had been a home and not a hunter's sanctuary, and it had pretty much been a less dusty match to this. "No idea what he's keeping us safe from."

"I discovered the plans my superiors have for you," said Castiel as he settled a handful of items on a desk that Dean had never seen clear of books before.

He hurried over, catching sight of all three of his journals and IJesus,/I was that his favorite gun? He hadn't seen it since 2008. "I'm guessing that they aren't exactly something I'm going to enjoy."

"The plan from the beginning was to free Lucifer," said Castiel, and the angel looked like he'd had his entire world yanked from beneath his feet. It was the first real emotion Dean had seen on Cas' face.

"That's insane! I mean, really, seriously, 'dingoes ate my baby' batshit crazy."

"They plan to bring about paradise on Earth."

"By jump-starting the apocalypse?" Bobby interjected.

"Yes. The plan was to allow the seals to be broken with only a token resistance from the side of Heaven, allow Lucifer to take a vessel, and then the armies of both Heaven and Hell would fight until Hell was defeated. The battle would decimate most of humanity and a good portion of the earth."

"And how did that plan go completely FUBAR?"

Castiel tilted his head, looking at Dean. "The plan was destroyed when you killed Azazel. That particular demon was the one who was setting the pieces into place. You were never intended to be successful in the task."

"The Special Kids Deathmatch," Dean said his voice quiet and hard. "So your angel buddies were planning on using the survivor to help break the seals. Hate to break it to you, but the reigning champion wasn't going to go along with that plan."

"The demon called Ruby was in place to make sure that it happened." Castiel turned away and stepped to the wall, rolling up his sleeve as he went.

"I thought Lilith made Ruby go away." Out of the corner of his eye Dean watched as Bobby left the room and headed into the kitchen, returning with a bottle. Dean could sympathize, even if he couldn't join in quite yet.

"Ruby is Lilith's creature, loyal to the core. Shortly after the hounds dragged your soul into Hell, Ruby came back into Sam's life. It was apparently all very carefully planned out. Ruby was to take an attractive female host and get close to Sam. Its job was to guide Sam into breaking the final seal by doing exactly what he wanted to do." The angel produced a knife from somewhere, cut into his arm, dipped his fingers into the blood and began drawing some sort of sigil on the wall.

"Except that I was back and in the way," Dean argued. "I could have stopped him. And by the way, what's with the blood?"

"We need to remain hidden from the other angels. And Dean, we'll never know for sure if you could have held Sam back. Ruby was chosen for the job because she was very, very good at it." He finished whatever he was painting on that wall and moved to another.

"Are Mary and John safe?" Dean slid a glance over at Bobby, still unwilling to bust his secret completely. There would be more explanations later, but he was hopeful that they wouldn't all be spilled.

"For now. I do not know how the others intend to set their plans in motion, but they will need both you and your brother to do it."

"I get the feeling you two haven't told me everything," said Bobby from his place on the couch.

"In case you missed it," Dean said, "I just found most of this out myself." He sat down next to his friend and wordlessly reached for the bottle. Bobby handed it over willingly.

"There's more."

"Of course there is," said Dean, passing a hand over his face and rubbing at his temples before tipping up the whiskey for a swallow. "Let's hear it."

"The angel's plans were not the only ones that were interrupted. Lilith and Alistair are searching for you as well."

Dean took a moment to simply breathe. "Shit."

"They will be very determined," Castiel agreed. "And they have the help of other demons. I can hide you from the other angels, but there is no way to do such a thing against demons."

"Are they close?"

The angel looked up from his work. "No. Angels exist outside of time, but demons do not. They don't know who destroyed their plans, only that with Azazel dead they won't be able to free Lucifer."

Dean took a moment to process this. Keeping off the demonic radar shouldn't be too hard, but it had taken so long to adjust to the idea that angels existed that the concept of hiding from them was still strange to his mind. Castiel remained the only one he'd ever met, and while they often disagreed he couldn't help but have a grudging respect for the angel. Dude was badass.

"What does God have to say about all this?" Bobby asked. He was already on the way to getting drunk, the fastest Dean had ever seen such a thing happen with his friend. "Shouldn't He be stopping it?"

"No one knows what Father has to say about this," Castiel said quietly, his attention focused back on the sigils he was drawing. He was doing something that was apparently a delicate operation to the windowsill of the house. To Dean, who had been spending the last couple of years figuring out the angel's facial expressions and how they corresponded to the emotions he wasn't supposed to have, Castiel was practically screaming confusion and pain and possibly lost faith. "He is missing."

"What, he just wandered off? Did he leave a card that said 'So long and thanks for all the fish?'"

Castiel looked at him, his head tilted in an odd manner. "No. There was not a card. He is . . . unreachable."

"Frigging great," Dean complained. "I find out you guys exist, and then I find out that angels are just as big of dicks as the demons. And the boss apparently ran off to Tijuana. Perfect." He took one more swig from the bottle before taking it back into the kitchen and dumping the contents down the sink. This was going to be hard enough without the added pressure of Bobby self-medicating. "All right. First things first, are we safe here? Will the wards hold?"

"The Enochian symbols will only prevent the angels from locating us. Something else will be necessary against the demons."

"But they'll hold against your dick brothers?"

"For now."

Dean sighed and rubbed his forehead between his eyes. "All right then. We demon-proof this place, then we plan."

It would have been surprising to an outside observer to see how quickly they managed to lay down salt lines and devil's traps in a two-story home, but you didn't become a Winchester without learning how to do such things in record time and Dean and Bobby had been on the road together for years now. The house was short-term safe, as safe as it could be made without some pretty major construction, and the two hunters were downstairs with coffee within an hour.

"You gonna tell me what's going on?" Bobby said, his voice rough with whiskey and coffee and stress. "There's something you're not telling me, and I want to know right now."

"Was planning on telling you, man. Eventually."

"Talk or get out," the other man ground out.

Dean nodded and leaned across the table, resting on his forearms. "Sam's my brother." He paused, took a deep breath. "Was my brother. The demon who killed my mother was targeting families with . . .potential." He'd managed to work out that much on his own, mostly after the fact. "It wanted the children of those families to fight until only one was left in that generation, but we never really figured out what that demon's end goal was."

"And Sam died in the fight." Bobby's voice was matter of fact. He knew that Dean's brother had died, that Dean had made a deal and gone to Hell for it, but Dean had never wanted to share the details.

Dean closed his eyes and saw that scene all over again, saw the knife going into his little brother's back. "Yes."

"And apparently the angels knew about all this."

"Some of them did," Dean said, feeling oddly protective of Castiel. "I think its pretty obvious Cas was in the dark about a lot of things. I'm guessing the rank and file angels were the little mushrooms of the higher-ups."

"All right." Bobby glanced over at the cabinet where Dean knew he stored most of the alcohol before turning back. "What was all the rest of that about?"

"Damned if I know. Cas told me about the seals and Lucifer, but the rest of it is news to me. Once I killed the Yellow-Eyed son of a bitch that killed my mother, they pretty much left me alone."

Bobby shook his head. "Only you could manage to piss off both Heaven and Hell this much, just by being you."

Dean grinned. "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."

Castiel appeared from his sojourn in the basement, where he'd been doing his best to recreate the unbelievably awesome panic room that the Bobby of his time had built. It had been decided that he wouldn't leave the house until absolutely necessary, since they would have to take down the wards for him to come back inside. "It is complete."

"Awesome. Now sit down and tell us what's going on."

The angel perched awkwardly on a chair, the trenchcoat bunching oddly in the back. "I have told you what I know."

"So why are the angels looking for me, exactly?" Dean leaned in and studied Castiel's reaction.

The angel took a moment or two to reply, and that reply sounded oddly rehearsed. "There is a prophecy that states that only the righteous man can stop Lucifer's ascent once it's begun. They wish to keep you where they can keep you safe and hopefully control you."

Dean had spent a lifetime having information withheld from him and could therefore tell with uncanny accuracy when he wasn't being told the whole truth. "And?"

Castiel turned to the hunter. "Michael needs a vessel and you are the best option."

This gave Dean pause for a moment. "You've got to be kidding me."

"No," said Castiel. "Archangels need certain conditions to take a vessel. Michael must stay within a specific bloodline. He also requires a certain . . .personality that will blend well with his own. You are the best match for Michael in more than two thousand years. Michael could inhabit you for more than a century without ill effects on either of you."

"And the second choice for the position of Michael's angel condom?"

"John Winchester is the closest there is in this time, but he is less than ideal."

Dean supposed that he should be glad Cas had taken that conversation about keeping the time travel from Bobby to heart, but the load that had been dumped on him was more than a little distracting. "What if they decide to use him anyway?"

There was a second hesitation, more noticeable than the first. "When an archangel attempts to use an ill-suited vessel, it damages both the vessel and the angel. If the need is immediate and dire, Michael will risk it, but John can't contain Michael for long. A month at most."

"And right now Lucifer's still locked away in his box, so that's something we don't have to worry about," Dean stated. "All right. We need a plan."

Bobby snorted out a laugh. "This I've got to hear."

"Hey, that thing in Culloden with the ghost of the jilted bride was a fluke. I come up with awesome plans," Dean protested, grinning. He'd needed the break in tension. The last few years had been good for him, way less complicated than his life had been since he'd been a kid, and this sudden unwelcome re-immersion into the world of crappy destiny and the politics of Heaven and Hell was like putting on a jacket from his teen years that was too tight around his adult shoulders. Hunting with Bobby was just so fucking easy, even when it was hard, and this apocalyptic bullshit had gotten old long ago.

"There is no way to plan for this."

"Hey, you can plan for anything," Dean said, standing up and getting a coffee refill. "It might not end up being a successful plan, but you don't know that until you get in. What do the angels want?"

"You under their control."

"And?"

"Paradise on earth," Castiel added. "They plan to defeat Lucifer and turn the earth back to the Garden, before Lucifer started twisting Father's creation."

"All right. What about the demons?"

"Revenge for the destruction of their plans," Bobby said. "Sounds like you screwed those things all to hell."

Dean smiled. "It's a tough job, but someone had to do it."

"They also might be able to sense that some of the seals have been broken, but they wouldn't know why. Lilith in particular is likely seeking information."

"Wait, some of the seals are still broken?"

"Once broken, always broken. They can be reforged by the Host with time and effort, but obviously that hasn't been done."

Dean frowned. "Cas, maybe you better tell me more about the seals."

Once again the angel went quiet, pausing the conversation for several long moments. "There are more than six hundred seals, but only sixty-six need to be broken to free Lucifer," he finally said. "Other than the first and last, the other sixty-four can be broken at any time, in any order, and it can be any combination of those six hundred."

There was a lump of ice where his stomach used to be, and he could feel it growing. "Cas, what was the first seal?"

"You don't need to know that."

"Bullshit. What was the first seal?"

"The first seal was broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell." It was said quietly, possibly even a little gently, but all that managed to do was drive the words in even more deeply. "It was why they bargained so hard to get your soul in the first place."

The ice spread up to his heart, freezing the breath in his lungs. "It's all my fault. I started it."

"You are not to blame. My superiors are at fault here. I was kept from raising you until you had broken the seal." Castiel stared at him, unblinking, and Dean tried and failed to meet his eyes. "It has always been known that your family was destined to be at the center of this conflict."

"If that's the first seal, what's the last?" Bobby asked, doing his best to shift Dean's attention back to the matter at hand.

"Lilith. Her willing death at the hands of man after the other sixty-five seals have broken. The problem is that Lilith is the first demon, so old that even the Colt might not have killed it. And that is where Ruby and Sam came in."

"Like hell I'm gonna let that bitch drag my brother into this."

"Their plan might have succeeded if you hadn't killed Azazel," the angel reminded him, and Dean growled under his breath.

"Can we get back to planning how to avoid the apocalypse? You two can argue about all of this later." Bobby glared at both of them before turning back to stare down at his coffee cup. "Idjits."

Dean felt a corner of his mouth turn up, almost against his will. Trust Bobby to put things in perspective. "All right. I think we can all agree that neither side should get what they want."

"Billions will die in the process," Castiel said. "I would not see my Father's creation so damaged.

"Like I'm going to trust you to do this without me," Bobby added.

"Good." Dean smiled. Anyone who had spent time around Mary Campbell, and then Mary Winchester, would have recognized this particular expression she'd passed down to her son. Someone, possibly more than one, was about to get an ass-kicking that would long be remembered.

It took a while before he could get away from the others. They were, after all, busily making plans and he was the one they both listened to, the one who knew both sides of the street. The process was made more difficult by the fact that Cas couldn't leave without banishing himself from the house. It took getting Bobby embroiled in a discussion with Castiel about three separate dead languages for the two of them to be distracted enough for him to slip out the door.

He headed back toward an old corner of the yard that was mostly devoid of vehicles and entirely free of glass, mindful of the time Castiel had attempted to speak with him just after he'd come back from hell. He had no desire to pick out shards of things from his skin at the moment.

This was a monumentally stupid plan, top of a long list of similarly idiotic ideas he's had over the years. Even Cas was moving cautiously when it came to this asshole, and the dude had once taken the demon-killing knife to the chest without so much as a blink.

But if this was a way to keep his family safe indefinitely, he had to know. If he let the chance pass by without looking at it more closely and John and Mary and little Sammy ended up hurt because of it, Dean would never forgive himself. "Michael," he said, not bothering to raise his voice. "We need to talk."

There were none of the theatrics of his first few contacts with Castiel: no rattling of surroundings, exploding light bulbs or shattering glass. Just an undercurrent of vibrations, more felt than heard. It was, Dean thought, like the sound an engine made when the standard transmission needed to switch gears. And then a voice that seemed to come from everywhere said, "I've been waiting to speak with you, Dean."

Dean nodded. He'd never been on board with the God and angels thing, not like Sam had. Cas had managed to impress him with actions and an ability to ignore physical injuries, but his status as an angel had never truly figured into that. But Michael had a reputation, one even he had heard of, and now that he was really, truly speaking with the archangel the hunter felt a sliver of awe slip into his mind.

This meant, of course, that he immediately shot off his mouth. "Maybe if you dicks weren't trying to end the fucking world, more people would talk to you."

There was a pause, and Dean thought that the amused snort he sort-of heard was probably his imagination. Cas had proved pretty thoroughly that angels didn't really have much in the way of a sense of humor. "Plenty of people talk to me all the time."

"Are you really part of this plan?" Dean asked, trying for nonchalance but mostly sticking with simmering anger.

"Not the way Castiel assumes I am," Michael said. "If Lucifer is freed and finds his vessel, I must fight him. Of all of us, I am the only one strong enough to return him to his prison. And to do that, I will need a vessel of my own. But if it happens, it will happen on Father's time. Not Azazel's and not Zachariah's."

"And if you could prevent the seals from breaking, would you?"

"Of course," the angel replied calmly. "If it was Father's will."

Dean allowed himself to relax a little. "Better call him up, then. I've got a proposition for you."

Castiel was waiting for him when Dean walked back into the house an hour later, and the hunter could tell that Castiel knew everything that had taken place outside. "You risk too much," the angel said. "If one of the others had come instead . . ."

"Relax, Cas. Mike showed up like he was supposed to."

"Just because your plan succeeded does not make it a good plan."

Dean shrugged and headed into the kitchen for a beer. "Whatever. You heard what he had to say?"

"Yes."

"And?"

Dean had never seen Cas sigh, but he had a feeling that the angel very much wanted to do that right now. "It could work."

"Don't overdo it with the compliments, Cas."

"It's still an incredibly insane plan, Dean. It hinges entirely on Michael, and he has always been very single-minded about duty and responsibility."

"It's gonna work, Cas." He leaves off with that, not adding the part about how now it has to work, since he'd revealed his position to the angels. Dean had a feeling that Castiel already knew that.

"This isn't going to work," Bobby said, though he kept drawing out the symbols. "Calling them here like this is just going to get us dead faster."

A less secure man than Dean Winchester would have worried about the fact that the two individuals who knew of this plan disapproved of it. As it was, he just shrugged and continued to add ingredients to the mix of herbs and other disgusting things that he was concocting. "If something is coming for me, I'd rather know when and where it's going to be than try to be on guard all the time. This is going to happen eventually, no matter what, and I want it to happen on our terms."

Bobby nodded like he hadn't already heard this particular argument several times over the last few days. He had agreed that it was one of the few ideas that they'd come up with that had a chance in hell of working, and if Dean was willing to take the chance Bobby could do no less.

The only manly response to that was a slap on the back and a joke about Bobby turning into a girl, which got him an eyeroll and a slug to the shoulder as his friend walked away to start researching.

Castiel had left to gather supplies, since the angel-proofing he'd done on the place no longer mattered. The angel was still a little unhappy with the plan, such as it was, but was reluctantly on board with Dean's decision.

It had all come together with almost frightening speed, almost like this was meant to happen like this. Materials that should have been hard to find practically fell into their laps, esoteric and little-known rituals that they needed were provided almost off-handedly by Castiel, and their playmates reacted exactly the way they were supposed to. It all fell into place so easily that Dean was starting to worry; things that were too easy were inherently suspicious to the hunter.

This could go very, very badly for him, in a multitude of ways, but Michael had promised that this particular course of action would keep John and Mary and their children safe. The Winchesters would have angels watching over them, just like his mother had always said, and that trumped any hint of personal jeopardy.

"It's ready," Bobby said, studying his work with satisfaction on his bearded face. Dean had a quick memory flare of what his friend would look like in twenty years if he could just keep Bobby alive until then, but pushed it back and concentrated on the matter at hand.

"All right then," he said, squaring his shoulders and stepping into the circle. "Let's step in front of the moving bus." Dean closed his eyes, feeling a little ridiculous, and called for Michael.

The archangel had spoken to him several times now, sometimes answering Dean's call about a question the man had and sometimes of his own volition, to point out a flaw in one of the steps of the plan that had taken shape. They had formed some sort of awkward, uneasy working relationship after the second such visit, which became a little more comfortable as things progressed. And during the course of this progression, Dean learned that he didn't need to call out for Michael with his voice when his thoughts would do just as well.

The angel's presence eased into his awareness, bright and almost too hot like noon on a sunny day in July. There was an unspoken question, the same one Dean felt more than heard every time he and Michael came into contact. He'd always refused before, and Michael had retreated with apparent patience and good humor. This time he steeled himself and answered, "Yes."

Dean had never been possessed before, by demons or angels, but he had a good idea how it worked. The memories of what had happened when his dad and brother had been possessed were still vivid, but Sam had never wanted to talk about what it had been like, whether he'd been aware or not when Meg had taken over.

Michael opened Dean's eyes and took in his surroundings. He could see his brother Castiel, tucked away in the clay that was Jimmy Novak. The connection between Castiel and Dean was obvious, a tether of light that bound the two of them together irrevocably, and Michael marveled at his Father's plan. He knew that even now, there were pieces of this intricate puzzle that were snapping into place, pieces that no one but the Father saw coming.

He looked down and saw Robert Singer crouching just outside of the circle of oil. When their eyes met, the man nodded once, sharply, and lit the substance, forming a perfect ring around him.

Dean talked to him quietly while the next step took place, and Michael absorbed and cushioned the conflicting emotions that his vessel was experiencing at the mention of Lilith and Alistair. There was a familiar burn within his grace, the desire to dispense justice for his Father's beloved children, but he tempered it with wisdom. His Father would deliver vengeance on his own terms, and while He might choose Michael to be the vehicle for those actions, it wasn't the angel's place to decide the when and where.

Castiel disappeared from mortal eyes, though Michael could see him easily enough as they waited for the next guests to arrive.

Neither one came alone, which didn't surprise him. Dean made a joke about Lilith traveling with an entourage, which was funny once he'd reviewed Dean's memories. They were a cumbersome group, all told, bodyguards and courtiers and personal servants, crowded around the form of tiny Leah Stuart.

This was the hardest part of the plan for him. The little girl's soul was trapped, pinned close to Lilith's corruption and aware of every action that the demon took using those tiny hands. He could easily reach out and soothe the pain of that fragile spirit, lull her into a state of unconsciousness until their business was concluded – if he wasn't trapped in a circle of holy fire.

Dean was tense now, wary of the demons around them, and Michael wished he could cut off the flow of information traveling to the man. Leah was screaming in agony on a frequency only angels could truly comprehend, and Dean was struggling to keep thoughts of hell away. Castiel was having the same struggle with Jimmy, working to soothe his own vessel's fear and revulsion.

Alistair wasn't far behind the first demon, though his attendants were fewer and were fairly obvious apprentices. Dean knew the faces of those demons, though he wasn't aware of the names they had once had. Michael could have named them, of course, both with the names they had been given as humans and the identities taken on in Hell. Alistair's presence brought Dean's memories of hell into sharp focus for a moment before Michael was able to direct his attention back to the matter at hand.

Lilith strolled up to Robert, the pink and purple beads holding Leah's dark cornrows into place catching bits of sunlight. The girl's mother had plaited her hair just that morning, a few hours before the demon clawed its way inside and snapped the woman's neck. "I don't like being called without good reason," she said. "I hope you have a present waiting for me."

Robert was afraid, justifiably so in Michael's opinion, but he didn't let it show. Instead he gestured to the circle of fire surrounding the archangel. "I heard you were looking for him," he said, keeping his tone polite and conciliatory. Lilith liked to be catered to and indulged, built elaborate scenarios with it when she had the time, and the quickest way to get on her good side was a heavy application of flattery.

"I wasn't looking for anybody, silly, but I always love a present," she said.

One of the demons, in the stolen body of an artist named Andrew Parr, stepped forward at Lilith's unspoken command, and Michael felt Dean start with surprise when he recognized the demon when seen through Michael's eyes. The angel confirmed Dean's suspicion and faced the one who had called itself Ruby in Dean's time.

It didn't break the circle, just walked the perimeter and studied Michael carefully. "Pretty sure it's an angel, boss."

"Really?" There was a parody of a delighted smile on the young face. "How did you manage to trap an angel?"

"Called it to its vessel and lit up the holy oil when it got here." Robert didn't bother to try for nonchalance or bravado, which was a good decision. "I heard you were trying to find out how your plans were disrupted and I thought this might get you some answers."

"I've been waiting for a chance to play for a while now," Lilith said, stepping in a little closer. "It's been centuries since I could do anything with an angel. They've stayed in heaven and away from us."

"He's all yours."

"Hmm. And what do you want in return?" The shrewd look on Leah's face was incredibly out of place.

Robert swallowed hard and Michael could feel the pain that this had dredged up, hiding just below the surface. "My wife," he said finally.

"So you want to make a deal?" Lilith turned her head to look at Robert, though she was didn't move from the edges of the circle of fire. "Goody! I love deals."

"The angel for Karen, here and alive," Robert said tightly, and as Dean would say, that was his cue.

"I am not his to be traded," Michael said, allowing some of his power to come out in his voice. "Nor can I ever belong to one such as you." She was close enough to him now, and there was no point in delaying further. As Lilith took a step back, Michael stepped out of the circle of fire, made with ordinary lamp oil, and held her fast. He focused on the twisted corruption that was Lilith, trying to sink claws fast into the soul of the little girl trapped inside and drag her along when she was inevitably sent back into the Pit, but Michael would have none of that. A child such as Leah was cherished by his Father, not meant for the likes of Lilith and Alistair, and he had no intention of letting the demons have her.

Michael set his hand on Leah's head and burned Lilith out with his Grace, locking her back into the pit so tightly that it would be almost as difficult to free Lilith as it was to free his fallen brother. While Lucifer would one day be freed from his prison, if only for a short time, it was his Father's will that the former angel stay bound for as long as possible. When Lucifer once again walked the earth, it would be at God's timing and not that of anyone else.

With that task cared for, he prepared to set the little girl's soul free and send her Home, only to pause when Dean protested. There was a hurried conversation that took place in less than a second, since Michael could see Dean's thoughts as the young man formed them, and Leah was placed in a deep sleep and gently placed to the side.

The other demons had not remained idle during this time, of course, but Castiel and Robert were working in tandem to exorcise them. Michael smiled and waded into the fray. It was time to be about his Father's business. He had work to do.

Chapter Four

Dean came back into control with a gasp for breath as Michael left him. Without the support of the archangel's power his knees were jelly and he obligingly dropped down to a sitting position next to the still-sleeping form of Lilith's former host. Other abandoned hosts were scattered around the salvage yard like the aftermath of a particularly enjoyable kegger, in various states of consciousness and health. Cas was standing a few feet away, looking down at Dean without expression.

"That," Dean began, looking up at the cloudless sky and blinking lazily, "was I awesome/I."

"Michael's presence often has that effect," Castiel said solemnly.

"Dude, it was like riding shotgun at Nascar," he drawled out. Then his eyes slid shut and his body collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

He woke up on Bobby's couch a few hours later. There was a warm weight curled against his side, lying quietly against him with very little movement. Dean looked at the little girl who was currently responsible for the numbness in his arm. Her eyes were open and he could tell that she was really seeing him, not just staring blankly ahead.

He sighed. Leah Stuart, the former host for Lilith. Mike had wanted to let the girl die so that she could go straight to heaven, apparently a reward for everything she'd been through. Dean had argued for the girl's life and apparently won.

"She wouldn't rest apart from you," he heard Castiel say, and turned his head to look at the angel. It was weird seeing him now, with his own human eyes instead of Michael's vision. "When I attempted to take her to another room, she cried and clung to you."

" 'S my magnetic personality," he said, sitting up carefully and trying to discreetly shake the pins and needles from his left arm. Leah had readjusted her own position and climbed into his lap. "Everything ok?"

"Lilith is sealed away, the other demons are back in the Pit, and we have returned all of the hosts to their families, save for Leah." Cas inclined his head slightly. "Michael said that you would care for her personally."

Dean nodded and brought his still-tingling hand up to lightly stroke the girl's hair. Leah relaxed into the touch and finally closed her eyes. He had fought for her life, and that made her his responsibility.

He repeated the action, wanting to take the same kind of comfort from Leah as she took from him, and nearly fell off the couch as the knowledge poured into his head.

It took a moment to sort through the jumbled emotions, fear and sorrow and a tiny ribbon of hope all mingled together, and focus on the other details. There was Leah as she looked now, little-kid jeans and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, her hair still in tight, neat cornrows. A flash of a younger Leah, giggling as she runs through a set of sprinklers while Mommy watches, her hand on the belly that would be baby Kat. An old woman who was also Leah, wearing a white coat and gloves on her hands as she stitches up a gash on the arm of a gangly pre-teen. Leah walking across a platform, tall and elegant in her black robe and cap, reaching out a hand to accept the diploma.

It ended when Castiel pulled the girl from his arms and the contact between them ceased. Dean came back to Bobby's shabby living room with a gasp, eyes searching the room before landing on the angel. "What the hell was that?"

Cas soothed the whimpering child, looking oddly comfortable with her on his lap. "Michael," he said grimly. "It's one of the aftereffects from acting as his vessel. You were warned that there might be consequences."

"All I did was touch her and it was like downloading 'Leah's Greatest Hits.'" Dean rubbed the palms of his hands on his worn jeans. "Is this permanent? Am I gonna get the portable version of someone's life history every time I touch them?"

"There's no way to tell. The more compatible an angel and his vessel are, the more carries over when they separate and the longer it takes to fade. Michael has no doubt taken on a few of your characteristics as well."

"Well, that's just friggin' great," Dean spat out. "Michael gets a sense of humor, and I get the damned Shining. Oh, that's fair."

"It will ease with time," Castiel said, finally touching Leah's forehead with two fingers and sending her into a deep sleep. Dean wasn't sure if the angel was tired of keeping the kid's hands away from her objective or if he'd decided that rest was more important than her wishes. "The knowledge that you gained from Michael will take longer to absorb."

Dean had been purposefully avoiding that particular landmine, but Cas' offhand mention set it off regardless of his wishes. Seeing things through the eyes of an archangel meant you saw a lot more than the human mind could easily handle, and every single one of those things were fresh and vivid behind his eyelids whenever he so much as blinked. It was almost like when he'd been yanked out of hell three years ago, though his memories from Michael, while still terrifying in their own way, didn't have the painful edge of his time in Hell.

Castiel was looking at him with Jimmy Novak's bright blue eyes, and in his mind's eye Dean could see Castiel, the real Castiel, looking out behind the mask. "You should let Jimmy go back to his family," Dean said. "Find another vessel that doesn't have a wife and kids."

"I will return him without harm when my mission is complete."

Dean gave a snort of humorless laughter. "Dude, you and I know that it's going to be a long time now before your mission is complete. Jimmy misses his family and he's pretty fucking traumatized by all the crap he's seen. Send him home and find someone else."

Castiel blinked, finally, and nodded slowly. "If it will put you at ease."

"Gonna take a hell of a lot to put me at ease about this, Cas," Dean said. "Send Jimmy back to his wife and kid. That's a pretty good start." With that he stood up and wobbled into the kitchen like a newborn foal. He needed food and caffeine, not necessarily in that order.

Bobby, bless his trucker-cap wearing soul, had a fresh pot of coffee sitting in the kitchen, the first cup cooling in front of his friend as Bobby read through a battered text, occasionally making notes. Dean poured out his own, trying to control the trembling in his hand as he handled the battered percolator, and sat down at the table next to him. He needed food still, a genuine need rather than a desire, since Michael had wiped out his energy reserves, but he couldn't stand long enough to even fix himself a sandwich right now. Once the caffeine from the coffee hit his bloodstream he would try again. Dean took a sip, then another, before turning to his friend. "Hey Bobby?"

"Yeah?" The other man's tone was preoccupied, but he looked up from the book and Dean counted that as a win.

"We just put off the apocalypse, man. School's out for summer. You don't need to be doing homework right now."

Bobby shrugged and looked back down at his book. "Passes the time," he said, taking a sip of his own coffee. "Had to have something to keep me occupied while I waited for your lazy ass to wake up."

Dean snorted, gulped down his coffee, and got up to heat up a can of beef stew. The tremors were still there as he ate, and he was pretty sure that Bobby had noticed since the man put down his book and scrounged up a sandwich, setting the plate in front of Dean without comment. Once that was finished off, Dean sat back with a second cup of coffee and let his mind drift.

"So what are you going to do with the girl?" Bobby asked, pushing aside his book, grabbing a beer from the fridge and sitting back down. "Castiel said that you had something different planned for her."

Dean nodded, looking at the beer longingly before turning his attention to his coffee. Michael had left a jumbled mess of information in his wake that he needed to sort out, and until he had everything compartmentalized again he wasn't putting anything stronger than caffeine into his system. "Lilith used her to kill her family," he said, eyes on the table and ears perked for signs of movement from the living room. "Mike dulled the memories a little for her, but she's gonna run into a boatload of problems if she goes into foster care. I'd take her myself, but it's gonna take a while to work through the crap Michael left in my own head. No need to screw up the kid more than she already is."

"All right. So long as you have a plan. You do have a plan, right?"

"It'll take me a couple of days to get everything lined up, but I think I have a place for her."

It took three, all told, since the paperwork was harder to pull together without the benefit of the internet. Castiel offered to take Leah, but Dean refused the offer. After a great deal of trial and error, he had figured out how to dull the things he picked up when he made contact with someone. It wasn't perfect, not yet, but one of the things that had shaken loose from the pile of information that Michael had left behind was that this new quirk of his would either fade completely or eventually come under his control, and practice would be the key to that control. He could live with it until then, though it was going to make getting laid a Ibitch/I. In the meantime, Dean would spend the next week or so driving Leah down and getting her settled in her new home.

Assuming that her new guardian said yes, of course, but he had a feeling she would.

He realized as he drove into the city limits of Lawrence, Kansas that he had missed the anniversary this year. November 2 had come and gone while he was ass-deep in apocalyptic bullshit, and Dean had been too caught up in dealing with the mess Michael had left behind to notice until now. Leah was sitting in the front seat, watching the golden-brown of fall in Kansas, but she turned to look at him when the thought crossed his mind. She seemed to pick up things like that, which had him dialing back all the drama of his own life as a precautionary measure.

Hope Missouri didn't mind taking in a formerly demon-possessed kid with possible psychic powers.

He was pretty sure she was going to say yes, and that wasn't entirely intuition from Michael. Missouri stood out vividly in his own memories as the kind of person who would never abandon someone if she could help in anyway, even if she got a little violent with a spoon now and again.

The house was much the way he remembered it, though newer and with a slightly neater yard. The sign outside was freshly painted and swung gently in the breeze as Dean parked the car and got out. Leah scrambled out when he opened her door, abandoning the blanket she'd had wrapped around her since she left Bobby's.

They fell into step as they walked toward the house, Leah's small hand creeping up and grasping Dean's large, rough one. Dean muted the stream of potential Leah's as best he could, focusing on the here and now and hearing the voice of Yoda in his head.

Leah giggled as they climbed the steps to the porch, and he intentionally brought up a mental image of the little green Jedi Master. Old school Yoda, of course, no prequels here. He was rewarded with a brief, bright smile. Yeah, Missouri was going to have her hands full with this one.

The door opened before they could knock. Missouri looked at them both in the late-afternoon sunshine before stepping back and gesturing into the house. "Better come in, both of you," she said, leading the way through her 'office' and into the kitchen. "Take a seat, you two. I have a feeling you need food before we do anything else."

Dean did as he was instructed, suddenly too weary to object behind a token grumble. Leah scooted her chair over close to Dean's before climbing up and letting her legs swing. She seemed a little more at ease her than she had at Bobby's. Dean thought that was probably Missouri's influence, or possibly the fact that Missouri's house was definitely a home, while Bobby's place was just as emphatically not.

After a few minutes of comfortable quiet, broken only by the sounds of food cooking, Missouri set down grilled cheese sandwiches and mugs of tomato rice soup in front of both of them before sitting down at the table across from Leah. Dean looked at the psychic with suspicion; this particular soup was his mom's specialty when he was sick and he'd never been big on coincidence, but if Missouri had picked up on something she was keeping it to herself.

Missouri kept quiet until Leah noisily slurped up the rest of her soup. Dean's own food had been finished for a while by then, so he'd settled back and watched the girl eat her grilled cheese, disinclined to talk until she was done eating. He still hadn't decided how much to say, and how much of it could be said in front of a five-year-old who could barely be coaxed from his side for long enough to pee. The past few days had been hell on his vocabulary. Dean hadn't realized how many curse words he used on a regular basis until there were two little ears listening in on whatever he said.

"Whatever it is you've come for, I'm guessing it's not personal this time," Missouri said once the dishes were pushed away. "Your mind is a straight-up mess right now."

"There's a bunch of stuff I need to sort through," he said, leaving out the part about having the Unabridged and Complete Works of the Archangel Michael dumped into his subconscious. She might have picked up on it anyway, because she gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm here about Leah."

The girl sat up straighter at her name, looking from Dean to Missouri with a frown on her young face. "What about me?"

Dean was saved from answering by Missouri's thoughtful hmming. "I see what you mean," she said cryptically. "She's got a powerful gift, but no idea how to control it." There was a pause, then an exasperated huff. "Child, you need to learn when not to go poking around like that. It's downright rude to try and peek around in my mind like some kind of Nosy Nancy when I can see you doing it."

Leah rocked back in her seat at the reprimand, surprise evident in her expression. Dean had never bothered to try and level a punishment for this behavior; he was shit at discipline and until now he was the only one she'd tried it on. Seeing Missouri step into the gap made him relax a little. This had been the right choice. "Will you teach her?"

The woman reached across the table, touching Leah's cheek and staring into her eyes. "Give me an hour with her. I'll know by then." She nodded to Dean, dismissing him from the room. Dean left quickly, before Leah could object or he started second-guessing this decision. This was the best thing for Leah. He was barely holding on with his fingernails, trying to absorb and process the mountain of crap that Michael had left behind without drowning, and Leah needed someone who could focus on her with only minor distractions.

He started walking, more to keep busy than anything else. Until he had Leah taken care of, he couldn't afford to stop moving. Slow down for a second and the undertow would drag him under like the freaking Titanic.

His feet carried him past the garage where John worked, and he watched him work for a few minutes before moving on, brushing a hand across the surface of the Impala as he moved on. He missed that car.

Mary's restaurant was next, though he didn't go inside. Dean caught a glimpse of her through the window, her face set in concentration as she balanced a tray of drinks, but he moved on before she could see him. There was no way he could keep up the façade with his mother looking at him, even if she didn't know she was his mother. He kept moving.

It was probably closer to two hours before he made his way back to Missouri's place. Leah was asleep when the woman let him in, curled up on the couch and more at peace than he'd ever seen her. "I wore her out," Missouri said, looking down at the girl with fondness. "Child's got a lot of potential, if she can learn to curb her mouth." She glanced at him sideways. "Guess she picked that up from you."

"I tried my best," Dean said.

"Mmhmm." There was another look, practically oozing suspicion. "I don't have to be psychic to know what you're thinking right now."

Just to be contrary, Dean looked at her and thought of the raunchiest porno he'd ever seen. Missouri recoiled in reflex and slapped him on the arm. "You stop that right now!"

He chuckled, dodging another blow. "Stop what?"

Missouri glowered. "You know. Don't make me get a spoon."

The image of this Missouri, a few years younger than he was but wielding a long-handled spoon at his hand, made Dean laugh out loud. It was shallow laughter, petering out quickly, but he felt better for it all the same. "So you know what I want, then."

"I do."

"You gonna make me say it?"

She snorted out a laugh. "I should. But I won't. I'll take Leah in. We fit together well."

Dean relaxed. Part of him wanted to reach out to the woman, touch her hand and see how the little girl fit in with the life of Missouri Moseley. But he didn't trust this thing that Michael had thrust on him. Beside, she would probably make good on the spoon threat if he tried to use any psychic mojo on another psychic. "Good."

He didn't go straight back to Bobby's once Leah was settled in with Missouri. Probably should have; God knew his friend had enough issues of his own without Dean ditching him, but instead he holed up in an abandoned house a few miles away from Lawrence. He needed time to deal with the things he had learned from Michael, time and solitude.

Castiel came to him anyway.

"We need to talk," the angel said. As suggested, he had taken a vessel other than Jimmy Novak, this one much older but built with a wiry, lean strength. Dean touched the vessel's arm through a worn polyester shirt and saw the day Paul Rogerson took his orders, the first Mass the man ever conducted, the church he'd served for decades gently but firmly urging him into retirement. Then one day the skinny old man got a visit from an angel.

Now that he was aware of this bond between them, Castiel's motivations and actions became clear. "You've known from the beginning," Dean stated.

"I have known since the day I came into being that one day I would rescue you from hell and the consequences of the action." Castiel sat down on the dusty floor next to Dean. "The sacrifice was well worth the result."

"And is being stuck with me for the rest of your existence the result or the sacrifice?" Dean asked pointedly.

"An anticipated side effect," Castiel answered, tilting his head a fraction. "The sacrifice was the separation from Father when I entered Hell. That is the only sacrifice an angel can make."

"Right," said Dean, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He'd known that, or at least he'd remembered it as soon as Cas had brought it up. "So we're stuck being heterosexual life partners until the end of time, then. Friggin' great."

Castiel frowned. "It isn't something that could have been prevented. The only way your body could be returned to life after four months in the grave was an angel's grace."

"At least it was you and not one of the other dicks," Dean said testily. "Michael kinda left me a dossier on some of the other angels, and for the most part they're pretty much jackasses. Especially the ones who were trying to jump-start this whole thing."

"Most of us lack flexibility," Castiel agreed. "It is the way we were designed. Our true purpose is to worship and serve the Father by following his commands, but it is easy to lose sight of the spirit of those instructions while staying to the letter of the law."

"Well, Michael's cleaning house upstairs. Guess that leaves the two of us to muddle through down here."

"With Bobby Singer," Castiel said, smiling. "Having him as a friend has helped you."

"You are one sneaky son of a bitch," Dean complained. "I thought you just wanted me to help Bobby."

"I did. But I knew that you would be less lonely if you had a companion."

"Next time, send strippers. A lot more pleasant to wake up to than Bobby's grumpy ass."

"If that is your wish." Castiel was studying him now, Paul's sharp brown eyes just as intense as Jimmy Novak's blue ones had been. "I am sorry that you were not given a choice in this matter, Dean. The life in front of you will not be an easy task."

Dean shrugged his shoulders and settled back onto the sleeping bag he'd spread out. He knew Cas was right. One of the first things Michael had shared with him were the consequences of coming back from the dead the way he had. Castiel had used a portion of his grace to create a new body and tie it to Dean's soul, which meant that as long as Cas was still kicking, Dean would be too, looking exactly the age he had been when he crawled out of his grave. And human beings weren't meant to live forever. "Bring it," he said.

Life slowly returned to an approximation of normal for Dean. He and Bobby started hunting again, though they made Bobby's house a staging ground and didn't go as far afield. His friend was getting tired of life on the road, something Dean understood even if didn't feel the same way. The life he'd always lived wasn't for everyone. Most people, Bobby included, grew weary of the constant upheaval and traded it in for the comfort and stability and home. It was difficult to keep up a constant state of vengeance when the memory of the reason for it began to fade around the edges. He suspected his father would have been the same way if he hadn't had his sons to remind him of Mary at every turn.

Castiel spent more time with the hunters, Paul's lean frame appearing in the back seat of the car or in Bobby's kitchen. Dean was never sure if the angel was there for Dean's sake or his own, but the company was welcome.

Despite the absence of his family, as time went on Dean became content with his life. He had friends and hunting and a lack of apocalyptic bullshit, and his family was alive and safe even if he couldn't be with them.

There were people to save, things to hunt, and plans to make.

Epilogue

The call came in during a lull on a Tuesday afternoon. Bobby had already banished Dean to a hunt a couple of states away; long experience had taught him that his friend was the last person you wanted around when things were dull, unless you were Ilooking/I to start a prank war. "Singer Auto Salvage."

"I'm looking for parts for a '67 Chevy Impala," said a young male voice. It seemed vaguely familiar, but he wasn't the greatest when it came to auditory memory, which Dean got no end of enjoyment over. "People tell me that you're the guy to talk to."

"It's my mechanic's car of choice," Bobby said. Dean had been insufferably happy when he'd found one in the late 80's that fit his needs, and occasionally went a little overboard when it came to preventive maintenance. "He likes to stockpile whatever he can get his hands on when it comes to parts. Tell me what you need and I'll see if I can get him to part with any of it."

"Transmission's on its last legs," the young man answered promptly. "I've been babying it along for three weeks while I looked for a replacement."

Bobby considered it for a long moment. The more important pieces, such as the transmission and a few key pieces of the engine block, were often the hardest to find. Dean had two squirreled away in his parts shed, and chances are this kid wouldn't be able to find a viable replacement without some serious groundwork. Besides, he had faith in his friend. Dean could probably build a transmission himself from scrap metal if it came down to it. "If you can get here in three days, it'll be ready for you." Dean would be back by then, hopefully, and likely in a good enough mood to be swayed by a fellow Impala-lover. "Have a good story ready to convince him."

"Man, I have the best story. My dad proposed to my mom in this car. He gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday and told me to fix it, and this is the last thing I really need."

"Should work." He hesitated for a second, because the voice sounded incredibly young to his ears, but decided to go ahead anyway. "Bring a good enough story and a bottle of Johnnie Walker and he'll probably just give you the thing. And if it's safe to drive, bring your car too."

"I'll see what I can do."

Dean showed up two days later, a little battered, waterlogged and exhausted but not truly injured. "Kelpie's taken care of," he said before passing out in the spare room that he'd claimed almost two decades ago. Bobby tried to limp around the house a little more quietly than usual and made sure there was coffee, wondering as he went along when he became relegated to support staff on these things. He'd willingly taken on a researcher's role when his leg had been broken about ten years ago, and somehow he'd never gone back. Keeping up with Dean had been getting more and more difficult as the gap between their physical ages widened, and by now his friend could pass as his son if he wanted to.

Bobby was neck-deep in paperwork when Dean emerged 12 hours later, bleary-eyed and stumbling for the coffee pot. He brought a cup over for Bobby without prompting and sat there in comfortable silence while the caffeine seeped into his bloodstream. "Some kid out at the community college would love to make a little extra money running the books for you," he said when Bobby shoved the papers aside and reached for his rapidly cooling coffee. "I could hook you up, no problem."

It was the same offer he made whenever he happened to be present for Bobby's accounting binges, and Bobby answered with a glare that probably said everything that needed said about that topic. Truth was, they could both afford to pay someone to do all this. Neither one was a billionaire, but Dean especially was comfortably well off thanks to a series of investments back in the 70's and 80's that Dean had jokingly called "insider trading." Bobby assumed that he had gotten the information from angels somehow and had gone gamely along with the plan to put money on two or three computer companies. That particular piece of advice regarding Microsoft had proven to be worth its weight in diamonds. "I like doing it myself."

"Obviously." The other man grinned, and Bobby found himself wanting to slug him. It was a familiar thought. "You're having so much fun it should be illegal."

Bobby flipped him off and drank his coffee, making a face at the temperature of the beverage. "Got a kid coming in today or tomorrow," he said, changing the topic. Dean could talk like this all day unless you steered the conversation in a different direction, and usually Bobby was right there with him, but right now he was feeling vaguely irritated with the other man. "Looking for a transmission on a '67 Impala."

"You didn't tell him he could have one of mine, did you?" Dean looked a little worried. Ever since he'd managed to find and purchase his own Impala, he'd been almost insane in his protection of it.

"Do I look like I want to put up with that kind of bitching from you?" Bobby said with a snort. "I told him you had one, and if he showed up he could try and talk you out of it. Told him to bring a bottle of Johnny and his car."

"I'm not giving some punk kid one of my transmissions," his friend said.

"Come on, Dean. We both know if they set off a nuke tomorrow, you'd be out the day after and rebuilding that car with chewing gum and aluminum foil if you had to, and the damn thing would run."

"Of course it would run," Dean said, grinning. "Dude, I'm freakin' MacGyver. Have I ever given you cause to doubt me?"

"Nope," Bobby answered, a sly smile coming up. "Which is why you're going to give the kid one of your spares when he asks for it."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "You are one manipulative bastard, you know that?"

"I'm aware." Bobby didn't allow Dean to ruffle his composure. The man talked a tough game, but being adopted by Dean Colt was like joining the mafia. Once you were in, you were in for life. And the process of adoption was frighteningly easy; if he saved your life, you were family. End of story. There were scores of people across the country who could summon Dean with one phone call and a plea for help.

Dean rolled his eyes and stood up, setting aside his empty cup. "I'm going to do a little work on my baby, Singer. Call me when the brat shows up."

Bobby stubbornly plowed through a stack of old purchase orders and worked his way down a list of suppliers looking for a door panel for an '86 Nissan Pulsar when he heard the rumble of a rebuilt, American-made engine. The sound was eerily similar to Dean's own Impala, a throaty growling sound that he knew his friend enjoyed to an almost ridiculous degree. The sound cut off as it neared the house, followed by the creak of a heavy steel door opening and then slam a few moments later. Solid footsteps approached the house.

He got up from his desk when Powell stirred from his space on the porch, the dog making a soft warning sound that was somewhere between a growl and a bark. The footsteps stopped. "This dog gonna eat me if I come any closer?"

"I fed him this morning. Should be safe," Bobby said. "Stand down, Powell." He headed back towards the kitchen to get a beer for his guest, opening up one for the kid and one for himself and adding a dash of holy water to both, just in case. "You can come in."

The door opened. "Powell, huh? Like Colin Powell?"

"Yeah. Used to have a mutt named Clinton, but the damned thing wouldn't stop humping everything in sight. Took it in to get it fixed and the vet ended up having to put it down." He stepped into the living room and got a good look at the kid.

Dean was looking back at him, way too young and without the muscle and scars he would develop later in life. "Dean Winchester. Nice to meet you, Mr. Singer."

Bobby stared for a second. That Iidiot./I "Good to meet you too, kid. Where you from?" As soon as he heard the reply of Lawrence, Kansas, he was walking past the boy, out the front door and back to the area behind Dean's workshop.

He knew the kid was following him, having asked one spluttered, "What the Ihell/I?" before trailing along in Bobby's wake. He couldn't bring himself to care. Let Dean's fucking Ison/I follow him. Kid had to meet his daddy somehow.

Dean was stripped down to his tank undershirt, the scar on his shoulder standing out in the bright sunlight. He had the hood of the car open, but was sitting on the ground next to the front bumper chatting with Castiel instead of working. The angel stood up when they approached, homing in on the kid with unerring accuracy. He said something to Dean, who scrambled up with a panicked expression on his face. Good. He should be worried.

"Dean Winchester," Bobby says, and gets a gleam of satisfaction when his friend flinches at the name, "meet Dean Colt, my mechanic." He shot off one more glare in Dean's general direction before marching into the house. Idjit.

Dean watched the older man walk away before turning back to the mechanic. "What's going on?"

The mechanic, Dean Colt, looked over at the wiry old man beside him before sighing. "You sure the world isn't going to implode over this or anything? Doc Brown said this would be a bad idea."

"Nothing bad will happen because of this, Dean. It is even possible that something good may come instead."

Colt turned back to Dean, an eyebrow arched in a very familiar way. There was a definite resemblance, but Dean wasn't sure why that bothered Mr. Singer. "Nice to meet you, Winchester. Heard you have a '67 Impala." He reached out a hand and Dean shook it mechanically. The more he looked at the man, the stronger the resemblance became.

"Are we related or something? 'Cause I have to tell you, it's a little weird seeing this handsome face on a guy I've never met."

"Could be," Colt said, shrugging. "Come on, let's take a look at your car."

The skinny old man stepped back from them. "I should go and speak with Robert."

The mechanic nodded. "I'll talk to you later, Cas. Say hi to your jackass brother when you see him."

"I shall tell Michael you miss him greatly," the man said, a slight smile on thin lips, before he moved away, disappearing quickly into the maze that was the salvage yard.

"I heard you had a great story about your car," Colt said, turning back to him. "Why don't you show me the car and tell me about it."

"Yeah, I can do that," Dean said slowly. "Why was Mr. Singer so upset?"

"Bobby just gets like that sometimes. Nothing to do with you. So, Winchester, how old are you anyway?"

"Eighteen," Dean said, leading the way back to his baby. "My dad gave me the car when I turned sixteen, and I've been trying to fix her up whenever I get the time and money."

"You in school?"

"Start at Kansas State this fall. I'm thinking about engineering."

"Like taking things apart and making them better?" There was a teasing edge to the man's voice, and Dean looked up at him with curiosity.

"Yeah. Drives my mom nuts sometimes, 'cause I can't always get the thing put back together right. We went through three toasters when I was in elementary school because I couldn't get the wiring back in."

"Any brothers or sisters?"

"Got a little brother. Sammy. He's so smart its scary sometimes," Dean said, bragging a little.

"You work in a garage or something right now?"

"Nah, I've got an EMT license. Work part-time with the fire department." They reached the Impala and Dean popped the hood.

Colt looked at the Impala with an expression that was almost reverence. "Man, she's gorgeous."

Dean smiled, his eyes on his baby. "I know."

They stayed with the car for over an hour, poring over the engine and body, and Dean told the mechanic about how his dad had proposed to his mother in this car, and how he'd been born in the backseat when his father couldn't get his mother to the hospital in time.

And in the end, Colt took him to his workshop and pulled a transmission off a shelf crowded with enough car parts to make him drool. "Take care of her," the man said.

That was exactly what Dean Winchester intended to do. He left the yard with a transmission and Dean Colt's contact info, still wondering what all the fuss was about. The other man was obviously a great guy, even if he seemed a little intense at times.


End file.
